Impressions of the Bayview Featured Artist: Shantre Pinkney

Impressions of the Bayview

SHANTRE PINKNEY

Inspired by hip-hop, jazz and French New Wave cinema, Shantré Pinkney began her creative venture in New York and studied filmmaking in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and San Fran- cisco.

As a student at the Academy of Art

her first film, The French Artist won best super 8 at the Epidemic Film fes- tival presented at the San Francisco Castro Theater. Her short film The Raw was an official selection at the Pan African Film Festival, Western New York Black Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival and also won awards at the Urban Media Makers festival.

Working within the mediums of photography, film, theater, and new media she is a lover of non-traditional and inquisitive stories. She creates stories to raise dialogue between art and her audience. She is currently developing an experimental film, Argos Amores and a feature script based on The Raw.

shantre.com @shantreverite

Artist Statement

Lest We Forget: A Portrait of Bayview Hunters Point Photography series by Shantré Pinkney

A black & white mobile photogra- phy exhibition bringing awareness to

individual stories, joys and struggles of San Francisco Bayview Hunters Point residents.

For years, Bayview Hunters Point

(BVHP) has been idealized as a high crime and high-polluted area of San Francisco. While working as a youth facilitator and developing my short thesis film, the apathy and violence residents faced in an increasingly gentrified community disheartened me. I’m not from this area, however, after living and working here for 5 years, and working with those living in lack, losing loved ones to violence, and dealing with unemployment left an impact on me. Lest We Forget came about through conversations I’ve had with residents and their love for the people in the neighborhood. Many have concerns with being gentrified and pushed out; including those who want to make sure that neighborhoods are safe, their jobs are steady and hous- ing affordable.

These photos are of friends, neighbors, friends of friends and beautiful strangers I met along the way in Bayview. I’m hoping to leave a last- ing and beautiful impression of those that represent the community – Their smiles, their laughter, their resilience and their humanness, which I think, sadly, many people forget.